


don't wanna miss a thing

by stevenstamkos



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: 5+1 Things, Getting Together, M/M, Obliviousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 12:49:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16723731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stevenstamkos/pseuds/stevenstamkos
Summary: “It’s not like…physically possible to be that oblivious, is it?” Ryan asks, a little anxiously.Kreids only stares at him. “We’re talking about Millsy, right? We’re talking aboutMillsy.”“I’ve pretty much asked him out like three—”“Millsy,” Kreids cuts in, and then sips his whisky eggnog like that’s the end of the conversation. Ryan guesses it is.(or: Five Times Ryan McDonagh tries to subtly tell J.T. Miller how he feels, and one time he gives up and tells him outright.)





	don't wanna miss a thing

**Author's Note:**

> This pairing was a joke but you know me and jokes! They never stay as jokes! Oops.
> 
> To Hannah and Rebecca, who patiently listened to me cry about J.T. Miller and his Stupidity for the past month and then helped me get this fic together: I could not have done this without your input and your support. To Ryan McDonagh: You are my new father and I love you. To J.T. Miller: I will fight you with my bare fists. (I really hope they don't read this.)
> 
> Title from "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" by Aerosmith

1.

Ryan notices that everyone always seems to be bullying Millsy. It’s light-hearted and kinda funny, and J.T. gives back as good as he gets, never stops trash talking, chirps coming even as he’s bent over gasping for breath after AV makes them skate drills.

Guy’s got spirit. Ryan likes that about him.

It’s not the only thing that Ryan likes about him.

“Careful, Mac, your eyes are showing,” Step says, skating a lazy circle around Ryan.

Ryan’s eyes snap away from where J.T. is cheerfully taking a verbal beating from Zucc. “What?”

Step jerks his chin in their direction. “You and Millsy. You gonna ask him out to dinner sometime or what? We’re all waiting.”

“I’m not—” Ryan sputters, with some dignity as befits the new captain of the New York Rangers, before Step skates off chuckling.

Ryan shakes his head and heads over to rescue J.T. from Zucc.

“So what was Zucc saying?” he asks, once Zucc has sped off in favor of bothering Hags.

J.T. shrugs, making one of those ridiculous faces that he’s always making. “Just the usual, you know. Making fun of my shot. I told him he hasn’t scored on a slapshot all year.” He blows out a breath and bends to rest his stick across his knees. “Damn, I’m tired. And hungry.”

Step’s words come back to Ryan. It’s not a smooth way to ask, but he works with what he’s got. “Hey, so I was thinking we could get something together later.”

“Lunch?” J.T. brightens.

“Uh, later than that. I was wondering if you wanna get dinner tonight? At that real nice place in East Village, on First Street?”

J.T. cocks his head, looking sideways up at Ryan from his bent over position. “The steak place? It’s pretty pricey, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is. I’ll cover it though, no worries.” That is, after all, the polite thing to do on a date.

“You covering all of us?”

“What? No, it’s not a team thing. Just you and me. Two of us, tonight, at the steak place, I’m paying.”

A grin splits J.T.’s face as he straightens up. “Oh. Well, yeah man, let’s do that!” He leans on his stick, all his attention focused on Ryan now. “I ever tell you you’re my favorite, Mac? You’re so…captainly. Always feeding the rookies and the young guys and taking us out for one-on-one bonding with the captain.”

Which isn’t like…wrong. Ryan _does_ take the rookies out to dinner, and he distinctly remembers taking J.T. out like two years ago, when J.T. was first called up from Connecticut, before their AHL team moved to Hartford. It’s something he does to welcome the guys, since he knows that the vets can be a little intimidating. That’s something he does with a group though, and it’s definitely not what he means _now_.

“I’ll get you back next time!” J.T. adds, completely oblivious.

Ryan keeps his face cool, trying to recover his step after giving this one up as an L. “Right. Um…yeah. You want me to pick you up tonight?”

“Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks again, Mac!”

Ryan really wishes he would stop thanking him.

“Mac is such a great captain,” he overhears J.T. saying later that practice, and Ryan has a moment when he wishes the zamboni would run over him.

“Brutal, man,” Step says, laughing.

 

2.

They’re sharing a hotel room in Cabo during bye week. It’s been a while since Ryan’s had to share a hotel room, but he’s cool with it. It’s just for a week. And they don’t intend to do much sleeping, anyway.

There’s a minor issue with their room, but he’s determined not to think about it until he has to.

Instead, he goes outside and gets horribly distracted by the sight of J.T. on the beach, shirtless and wearing a backwards snapback and squinting towards the water. J.T. is built thick, solid everywhere especially his shoulders and thighs, and seeing him now is different than seeing him in the locker room. Ryan watches as he lifts a hand and shields his eyes.

“You can turn your hat forwards, you know,” Ryan tells him. “That’s what they’re designed for.”

For a second, he thinks that J.T.’s actually going to listen to him, as he reaches up and takes his snapback off to run a hand through his hair. But then he puts it back on, still backwards, and turns to Ryan. He’s still fucking squinting. “But…I need the aesthetic, man.”

“Kreids teach you that word?”

J.T. nods. “Yeah, it was last week’s word.”

Ryan stares off into the middle distance and presses his lips together, mostly so he doesn’t smile at that.

And he forgets about the little rooming problem until they get back to their room late that first night, drunk and stumbling a little, J.T. laughing into Ryan’s chest as they go. He’s still a little wet from an impromptu pre-bedtime dip, his hair getting the top of Ryan’s shirt damp, but Ryan doesn’t mind. He has other stuff to worry about when he gets his key in the lock and opens the door to their room.

Like the single bed set up in the middle, honeymoon style. God, he really didn’t just hallucinate that earlier, did he.

He bets it was Step who did that. Step booked the rooms and flipped them the room numbers when they got to Cabo. Fucking Derek Stepan.

“Millsy, we gotta—”

“Oh,” J.T. says, when he sees the bed. He blinks at it owlishly before turning to look at Ryan. “Shit, there’s only one bed.”

“Right,” Ryan says. And before he can say the obvious thing, the thing that Step probably wanted him to say, the thing that any fucking logical person would think, which is “Let’s share it,” J.T.’s mind does some weird mental gymnastics and lands on—

“Alright, which of the guys came up with this? If they’re hiding in the closet, I swear—”

“Why would they be hiding in the closet?”

“To prank us?”

Ryan’s mouth opens and closes for a few seconds. He snaps it shut and looks to the ceiling, which has no answers for him.

“I don’t think it’s a prank,” he says weakly.

J.T. grabs a pillow from the bed and tucks it under his arm, looking around the floor for a good place to set up. “It’s a mistake?”

No, Ryan’s pretty sure it’s not that either. “We could share the bed?” he tries.

That doesn’t slow J.T. down at all. “Nah, it’s okay, Mac. I hunt a lot and I go camping all the time and I can sleep on the ground whenever. It’s no big deal.”

Which is true, Ryan’s definitely seen the deer tattoo on J.T’s arm, but Ryan is also definitely not going to back down now. The guilt would keep him up all night, and it’d probably give him indigestion too after all the shellfish he had at dinner.

“I don’t have a problem with sharing, Millsy,” he says, louder. Mostly because Ryan really doesn’t want to sleep on the floor, but dignity is going to force him to if J.T. is on the ground. And anyway, he kind of wants to share a bed with J.T.? “Bed’s big enough for both of us to roll around in.”

J.T.’s mouth opens a bit, and he stands there like a stunned fish for a couple seconds before he closes his mouth and colors. “Wait. Uhhhh,” he says. He makes another noise in his throat, a drawn-out sound that Ryan can’t describe, and then he only says, at the end of it all, “Um.”

So they share the bed.

Except that Ryan wakes up (from a really nice dream, he might add, which featured J.T.’s thigh pressed tight between his) to find J.T. camping out on the floor of the room, passed out cold like he’s sleeping on fucking Egyptian cotton sheets or whatever. It’s really amazing how he _can_ sleep anywhere.

After that, Ryan physically can’t sleep in the bed while J.T. beds down on the floor, so he joins him on the floor. Which is all around a miserable experience. Ryan is going to sleep _so well_ when he gets back to his house in New York.

“I don’t know how you fucked up that badly,” Step tells him, once they’re back on the ice.

“He thought it was a _prank_ ,” Ryan hisses. “Why didn’t you warn me about the bed?”

Step shrugs, expansive. “Thought it’d be funnier. Also thought you guys would, you know, share it.”

So did Ryan.

As Ryan skates away from Step, back still a little achy from a week of sleeping on the fucking _floor_ , he ends up just behind Brass and J.T., who are skating slowly near the boards.

“I like Mac,” J.T. is telling Brass. Ryan’s heart skips a beat.

“Yeah?” Brass says.

“Yeah. He’s cool. But he’s all mysterious too, sometimes, like he’s enig—he’s enigmatic.”

J.T. learned the word _enigmatic_ from Kreids three weeks ago, and he’s been using it every chance he gets. It’s kind of cute the way he does it, very Millsy. He gets it wrong sometimes, but he’s trying.

“How’s Mac enigmatic?” Brass asks, not missing a beat.

J.T. shrugs. “He’s just, you know, like he’s a great guy but I never know what he’s thinking. You ever feel that, with Mac?”

“No,” Brass says.

“He slept on the floor in Cabo. That’s an enigmatic thing, right?”

Brass opens his mouth, probably to tell J.T. just how transparent Ryan is, how it’s clear to everyone but J.T. just how Ryan feels, and Ryan speeds up his strides until he can lightly bump both of them from behind.

“Forecheck, boys, forecheck,” he says.

J.T. transfers his stick to his left glove and lazily half-salutes him with his free hand, cheeks pink and eyes bright. “Yes, sir.” He’s grinning at Ryan, and he must not have any idea what his smile does to him.

“I’ll cover you behind the net,” Ryan says, because he doesn’t have an answer to that smile.

 

3.

He has the guys over for a pre-Christmas team dinner, which Ryan thinks is just as nice if not better than the Thanksgiving dinner he throws every year. There are a few girlfriends and wives and boyfriends around to rope into helping him, and it comes out really nice.

(No mashed potatoes for Christmas dinner this year though. Ryan made a stern note about that after Thanksgiving a few weeks ago, when J.T. had enjoyed Ryan’s mashed potatoes maybe _too_ much and Ryan had spent the entire national holiday feeling guilty about the acrobatics his dick was trying to do in his pants.)

After dinner, someone—Brady probably—brings out a card game, and a group of boys take over Ryan’s couches and armchairs for a game of What Do You Meme? A few other guys stand around talking and drinking, shouting to be heard over each other. A Michael Bublé song starts up from somewhere.

Ryan leans against the wide arch that separates the kitchen from the living room, feeling content as he watches his team.

The knit hat that he’s wearing moves a bit as someone behind him tugs on the end of it. He half-turns his head to see Step moving around him, side-stepping neatly until he’s in front of Ryan.

“What are you doing lurking in the doorway?”

“Lurking?”

“Yeah, man. You’re lurking. Watching.”

Over his shoulder, Ryan can see a pair of antlers towering over Zucc.

J.T. showed up earlier wearing reindeer horns complete with floppy reindeer ears, and he’s spent all night adjusting them, as they keep falling off when he turns his head too quickly. They’re bobbing a bit now with the little movements of his head as he talks to Zucc.

“Just making sure things are going smoothly.”

“Under the mistletoe is convenient.” Step bumps him with his shoulder as Ryan moves to step out from under it. “What, no kiss?”

Ryan gives him a small, if exasperated smile. And he knows that Step is pulling his leg, isn’t expecting a kiss at all, but Ryan decides to indulge him just for a bit. The kiss that he drops to Step’s mouth is quick and almost brotherly.

“I really hope you do better than that with Millsy,” Step says.

At his name, Ryan’s eyes snap back to J.T. on instinct, and he locks eyes with him across the room. J.T. flashes him a smile and gives him an overly enthusiastic thumbs up, which gets Zucc to turn and look in Ryan’s direction too. He looks a lot less enthusiastic when he sees Ryan with Step, hanging out under the mistletoe like a couple of idiots.

Ryan feels himself flush. “I have to—dishes,” he mumbles and flees back into the kitchen.

(Fleeing? He’s not fleeing. Ryan is a goddamn adult who doesn’t flee in his own house. He just strategically relocates to the kitchen, where he’s greeted by a sinkful of dirty dishes.)

He’s just done loading the dishwasher when Step walks into the kitchen holding two glasses of eggnog. One is held out to Ryan, like a peace offering. “Sorry ‘bout the kiss. You didn’t have to. I know I’m not who you were hoping for.”

“It’s fine, man.” Ryan turns on the dishwasher and tosses aside his towel, accepting the glass. The first sip burns hotter than he expected. “Who the hell made this?”

“Uh, Brady, I think, and Jimmy. Not sure if they actually know how to make eggnog.”

That makes sense.

“So, mistletoe.”

“It’s festive,” Ryan says, trying not to sound defensive.

“In every doorway? You’re real dedicated to…Christmas.” He drags out the beginning of the word _Christmas_ , like he meant to say something else. Like maybe _kissing Millsy_.

Ryan doesn’t answer.

“Gotta time it right, Mac. Good luck with that.”

As Step heads back to the living room, he passes under the arch just as J.T. stumbles through looking for the bathroom. Ryan can see that Step is about to let it go, but there’s the distant sound of at least three voices shouting, “Mistletoe!” and he knows there’s no letting it go.

He closes his eyes and blindly takes another mouthful of eggnog.

J.T. gets kissed by six more of the guys before the night is over. Seriously, how does he keep moving through the doorway when someone else is walking through? Ryan doesn’t get it.

“Bad luck,” Kreids tells him. “You could take him upstairs and show him a real kiss?” He waggles his eyebrows, which is horrible.

“I tried, earlier, offered to show him the rest of the house.” There’s a little bunch of mistletoe hanging above the stairs. “He told me he’s already seen the rooms upstairs from the house tour video they did with me last season.”

Zucc butts in. “Did you say, ‘Come upstairs and let me kiss you’? Because if you don’t, someone else will kiss Millsy to death tonight.”

Ryan sighs and rubs his face. J.T. gets caught under the mistletoe with Hank.

And Hank is—Swedish, and handsome, and known to be a hell of a kisser, especially when he’s tipsy. J.T. is blushing when Hank lets go of him, a very even blush that takes over his whole face, leaving his forehead and nose and cheeks completely red. Ryan shouldn’t think it looks as good as it does, especially since it’s the product of a searingly hot kiss with _Hank_.

J.T.’s reindeer ears are lopsided again.

There’s a sharp whistle to Ryan’s left, Grabs stretched out across a couch and grinning lazily. “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen someone shut Millsy up,” he shouts, clean across the room.

“Yeah yeah, give Hank the Vezina for that,” Haysie adds.

Zucc gives Ryan a very pointed look.

“It’s not like…physically possible to be that oblivious, is it?” Ryan asks, a little anxiously.

Kreids only stares at him. “We’re talking about Millsy, right? We’re talking about _Millsy_.”

“I’ve pretty much asked him out like three—”

“Millsy,” Kreids cuts in, and then sips his eggnog like that’s the end of the conversation. Ryan guesses it is.

At least the eggnog is more whisky than anything else.

 

4.

It’s pretty much a given that Ryan’s going to be traded. Quality defensemen are in short supply around the league, and with the Rangers publishing a letter saying that they’re essentially nuking the season and going for the full rebuild, Ryan knows that his days in New York are numbered. That they asked for his 10-team no trade list last week pretty much seals it. It’ll be Boston or Tampa or Toronto or San Jose, but come February 27th, he’ll almost certainly be wearing a different sweater.

It’s not something that he tries to think about too much.

He hates that he’s not playing during the last few weeks leading up to the trade deadline. It’s almost worse that he’s sidelined, trying to rehab his hand and not even allowed on the ice for practice with the rest of the team.

He does show up for morning practice, if just to use the weight room. It’s his hand that’s injured; his legs work just fine, and he _wants_ the burn in his thighs and calves as he works the muscles to exhaustion.

The boys are trying their best not to say goodbye to him prematurely, but everyone knows what day it is. Ryan accepts their half-goodbyes and their muttered good lucks, and he lets them keep pretending that the goodbyes are about the team leaving him behind for the Western Canada roadie.

J.T. is nowhere to be found. It leaves Ryan with a feeling of bitter disappointment.

As he moves through the hallways on his way back to his car, he tries not to think about this being the last time he calls these halls home. And then—

“Mac! Hey, Mac truck!”

Ryan refuses to admit that his heart does a backflip in his chest. He spins around too quickly, catches J.T. hurrying toward him while taking his headphones out of his ears.

“Millsy, hey. I didn’t see you after practice.”

“Sather came looking for me.”

And Ryan doesn’t have a second to spare thinking about their team president, not when he’s drinking in the sight of J.T., hair windswept and looking unbelievable in a plum suit. J.T. stops in front of him and lifts an arm, looking caught between a hug and a fistbump. He goes with the hug. Ryan’s pretty glad about that.

“Keep me updated,” is all J.T. says.

“You have service on the plane?”

A shrug. “Nah, but keep me updated anyway.” He blows out a breath, controlled. “Hope you’re back on the ice with us soon.”

“Yeah, me too.”

It’s such wishful thinking, but it’s all they’ve got.

“If I’m not, just—You should know that I couldn’t be more proud to be your captain, your teammate, and your friend. And—” _And I’ll miss you, Millsy, more than anyone else here_. “And if I’m not here when you get back from Edmonton, I hope you remember that.”

J.T. is nodding along, face unusually serious. “Thanks, Mac. I’ll make sure to tell the boys that.”

Typical J.T. behavior. Ryan almost thinks about correcting him, but it’s February 26th, and that’s a bridge he’s burned already.

He claps J.T. on the shoulder, squeezing tight for a second before letting go. J.T.’s eyes are big, uncomprehending. _God_.

Ryan is seriously reconsidering his stance on not telling him, but Staalsy is showing up behind J.T., drawing even with them and jerking his chin in the direction of the exit.

“Hey, Millsy. Bus is leaving soon.”

“Yeah, thanks. Um, see you around, Mac. Good luck with everything.”

The team charter leaves at 1:30, an hour and a half before the three o’clock trade deadline. The boys will be somewhere in the air between New York and Vancouver when it’s over. Last Ryan heard, Toronto and Tampa are the frontrunners, so there’s a good chance he’ll be in blue for his next game, just not Rangers blue.

“Did you tell him?” Marc asks, once J.T. is out of sight.

What’s the point? Ryan doesn’t know where he’ll even _be_ tomorrow. He could be halfway across the country by then.

“No.”

“Mac…”

“Look, we know…with the rumors.”

“Still a chance they don’t get a deal done before the deadline. They’ve already traded Grabs and Nasher. Might not come down to you.”

“I’ll think about it then,” Ryan says, neutral.

The trade news breaks just after three o’clock, down to the wire. Ryan is sitting at home, and he sees his name and “TB” and “trade package” with no details. No one seems to know the details. He takes a deep breath and waits for the call.

 

5.

J.T. slots beautifully into the lineup in Tampa, clicking with the hottest line in hockey. He has undeniable chemistry with Stammer and Kuch. Ryan has always known what J.T. could do, fifteenth overall pick that he was with such high expectations put on him from the start, and he’s genuinely thrilled to see J.T. blossoming into the kind of player that he’s proving to be for the Lightning.

They lose to Ottawa at home not long after Ryan returns to the lineup, which is a humiliating, embarrassing, out-of-control loss, but J.T. scores his first career hat trick. That’s almost enough to make up for it.

“Come out with us tonight?” J.T. murmurs, still holding his three pucks in one of his big hands, and Ryan can’t say no. “I know you just played a monster of a game, but—” J.T. says, and Ryan is already saying yes.

He can’t sit still at the bar though, feels like there’s something digging under his skin every time he looks at J.T. and sees J.T. looking back. Or at least, he _thinks_ he’s looking back. That’s the thing about J.T.—Ryan is just never sure where they stand.

(Seriously. How many times is J.T. not going to get it? Ryan’s always pretty sure that he’s interested, but then—)

Next to him, J.T. nudges him with an elbow as he lifts his glass. His thigh is pressed against Ryan’s, solid, hard muscle, because J.T. always sits with his legs spread indecently. Ryan wants to be so, so drunk right now.

“You’re quiet,” Heddy says, on the other side of him. "Quieter than usual."

Ryan has to wet his mouth with beer. J.T.’s hair looks great after his shower, and Ryan wants to put his hands in it.

“Just a bit tired,” he says.

J.T. overhears and turns towards him, swinging an arm around Ryan’s shoulders and narrowly missing Heddy’s face.

“Bedtime already, Mac?”

“Maybe.” Ryan pauses, thinks about pushing the conversation in a very deliberate direction. “Wanted to come out and celebrate your hatty though. It was amazing to watch.”

“Good setup by the PP,” J.T. says, shrugging a little. It’s made difficult by the fact that his arm is still around Ryan’s shoulders.

“Lot of good work by you too. It was…pretty hot.”

J.T. looks up at him from under his lashes, one corner of his mouth turning up in a smile. It looks like an invitation, and Ryan’s stomach goes tight at the sight of him. God. He drops his eyes.

“Think I’m gonna call it a night. You?”

“Stammer just went to get another round.”

Before Ryan can answer, Killer leans across the table, eyes narrowed as he looks between them. “Mac, you’re leaving already?”

“Yeah. Um, tired,” Ryan lies, easily. Killer doesn’t look convinced, but he sits back and nods. Ryan turns back to J.T., leaning in to put his lips right by J.T.’s ear. He doesn’t miss the way J.T. seems to shiver. “You uh, wanna get out of here?”

“ _Oh_. You need—?” J.T. looks into his eyes for a second and then stands quickly, putting a hand on Ryan’s arm and guiding him out of the cramped booth. “Okay, c’mon, Mac. I’ll drive.”

Tampa in February is nowhere near as cold as New York, but it’s just cold enough to clear Ryan’s head, and he lets himself lean against J.T. as J.T. guides them to his car. He’s still thinking about J.T.’s thigh against his when J.T. stuffs him in the passenger seat, talking cheerfully as he does.

“Didn’t think you drank that much tonight. You’re getting soft, Mac.”

“I didn’t drink that much,” Ryan says. He drank some. He’s warm and just buzzed and J.T. is haloed in the light of the streetlamps.

“Hey, it’s not a problem. You definitely dragged my drunk ass home plenty of times in New York. Course I’d do the same for you.”

“I’m not drunk, I don’t need you to babysit—” Ryan starts.

J.T. catches his flailing hand and tucks it back into the car, arranging it on Ryan’s lap. “Dude, it’s cool. I’ll take care of you Mac, no worries. That’s what friends are for, right?”

Ryan is definitely, definitely not drunk enough for this. He only sits there, breathing hard as J.T. closes the door and loops around to the driver’s side. And Ryan—Fuck, Ryan fucking lets it go. Again.

Ryan always just lets it go.

“Right. Friends,” he mumbles.

J.T. shoots him a weird look. “You’re a good friend, Mac. One of my best friends, actually.”

Ryan closes his eyes and leans his head back against the headrest. “You too. You need the address?”

“Nah, I know it,” J.T. says. He doesn’t wear a seatbelt. Ryan says something about that. J.T. puts on his seatbelt, and then he watches Ryan fumble his on before pulling into the street.

 

“Well that was new last night,” Cally says. “You and Millsy?”

“There is no me and Millsy,” Ryan says miserably.

“Struggles, Mac,” G says. He turns to Cally. “It started right around when you were traded, Cally. We had front-row seats to the McDonagh-Miller show for a couple years. Tough go for a few years there.”

“I’ve been trying for years.” Not that Ryan has been _actively_ trying in all that time, but he gives it an attempt every now and then, when he’s not wistfully thinking about J.T.’s hair for months on end. He gives it a try when he feels like J.T. _has_ to be interested, but then J.T. turns around and leaves Ryan high, dry, and completely confused.

“I can’t believe your dick hasn’t been sucked since 2014,” G adds.

“Hey!” Stralsy and Ryan say at the same time.

Ryan wants to protest, because his dick has definitely gotten wet in the time since J.T. Miller made the full-time roster in New York, but G isn’t done and Ryan doesn’t get a word in edgewise.

“I mean, that’s the real tragedy. The tragedy of Mac’s inability to get his dick sucked by Millsy. You know that Millsy would in a heartbeat if you just asked him, right?”

“I’m not gonna ask him like, ‘ _Hey Millsy, could you suck my d_ —’”

“Or you could just get dinner,” Stralsy interrupts. Stralsy has gotten even more dadlike in Tampa, right down to the inappropriate language bit. And there are a few kids in the stands, watching from behind the glass. Ryan doubts the kids can hear them, but Stralsy is careful. Very dad.

“He thinks dinner is a teammate thing. And when I asked him if he wanted to see the new bedding I got, he asked for a picture. A _picture_. He really—” Ryan breaks off and sighs, resting the butt of his stick against the ice.

There are a few mumbled condolences, and when they’ve died down, Stralsy gives Ryan a look that makes him feel like a foolish rookie all over again, still lost in the halls of MSG.

“Use your words, Mac. For real, this time.”

 

+1.

Ryan stands with his legs spread just a few inches behind J.T., hands hovering in ready position as J.T. sinks down, knees flexing a bit under the weight of the bar. He’s doing a heavier set than normal, pushing it, and that’s probably why he asked Ryan to spot him a few minutes ago.

“Last one,” Ryan says, and J.T. grunts as he straightens from the squat and places the bar back in its place, ducking out from under it. Ryan slaps him on the back. “Good job.”

“Thanks,” J.T. says. His face is red, hair damp with sweat under his snapback. He looks good.

“So.” Ryan puts his hands on his hips to steady himself, digs his fingers into the material of his shirt. He swallows down his nerves. “Dinner tonight?”

“Sure. Cally and G coming too?” J.T.’s breaths are still coming a little hard, his voice coming out breathy.

“No, just you and me. Together. _Alone_.”

“Yeah, that’s great. Been a while since we caught up. You were kinda weird lately, Mac.”

Ryan’s been kind of caught up on figuring out how to use his words, so he thinks he’s forgiven for his long, moody silences. “Just been thinking about stuff,” he says.

An eyebrow goes up. “What kinda stuff?”

“Just…you know.” Actually, scratch that. J.T. probably doesn’t know, if the past four years have been any indication. “Been thinking about how to ask you to go get dinner with me.”

“Mac, you don’t have to get me flowers or anything. I’m always up for dinner.”

Flowers? Should Ryan have gotten flowers? He squashes that thought. “No I mean. Um.” God, this is hard. This is why subtle flirting _exists_. So people don’t have to stand there in front of their longtime teammate and put their heart in their teammate’s hands, feeling horribly exposed the whole time. “I mean it as—a date. For us. A real dinner, like a date. Not between friends or teammates. A real date, J.T.”

He hopes he said the word _date_ enough.

“And if you like the dinner, which is a date, I thought we could go back to mine and I could show you my room and we can—you know. Which is also a date. If you want to.”

J.T.’s face looks the way Ryan’s phone looks when Ryan is playing a stealth game of Candy Crush on the plane and the lag overwhelms his miserable iPhone. He tries not to overthink it as J.T. apparently processes his words.

“You’re fucking with me,” is what J.T. finally comes up with, once he’s caught his breath. “You’re—You—Was this Vasy, I know he has a Russian sense of humor and he’s normally fucking hilarious but this, like, I—”

J.T. turns away and nearly turns right into the squat stand, his hands coming up to clutch at his head. He’s so dramatic.

“I really want to take you out to dinner,” Ryan says, a little helpless. He takes a deep breath and pushes on. “I got reservations downtown, at that steak place you like. And you don’t—have to come over. It could just be dinner. Or not dinner, if you don’t want to. Just thought I’d ask, put myself out there again.”

“Again?”

“Yeah. Make sure that we’re on the same page this time.”

“This—This time,” J.T. says slowly.

Ryan only looks at him. J.T. sits down heavily on the nearest workout bench. There’s a long silence.

“So, uh. Is dinner on or off…?”

“On. It’s so on. God, Mac, you have no idea how much I want—Jesus. I gotta pinch myself or something.” J.T. presses his hands to his face, and then he spreads his fingers and peeks up at Ryan through them, still bewildered. “When else did you…?”

“So many times,” Ryan says fervently.

 

They’re laying around in bed after, and Ryan is definitely enjoying the afterglow, which he thinks he wholeheartedly deserves, thank you very much. J.T. is on his back, eyes closed and unmoving, and Ryan’s eyes trace the side of his face, over his jaw and down his neck to his thick shoulders and the slow rise and fall of his chest.

“You asleep already?” Ryan tries, quiet.

There’s a very, very long pause, and he’s about to roll over and get some sleep himself when J.T. speaks suddenly, in that slow breathy voice that Ryan only hears from people who are about to fall asleep mid-conversation.

“I could’ve slept on the bed in Cabo.”

“What?”

“In Cabo, like…two or three years ago. When we went for bye week and shared a room. Could’ve slept on the bed.”

“What?” Ryan says again.

“I got like, 30 minutes in and as soon as you fell asleep I was laying there like…‘I can’t do this, Mac is next to me, I’m gonna die’ so…I rolled out of bed and set up on the floor, and then we both slept on the floor for the rest of the week.” He breathes, even, and his eyes open briefly. “You remember that?”

Yeah, Ryan fucking remembers that.

J.T. continues. “If I knew you were okay with a good morning quickie, would’ve stayed in the bed.”

And then he falls asleep.

“Unbelievable,” Ryan says.

**Author's Note:**

> Is this pairing at all rooted in reality? No. Do I care? No. Have a picture of Mac's arms in this hoodie (and also J.T.'s thighs. And Mac's calves. Just [have this picture](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DrwQLIHWsAE0QiX.jpg).)
> 
> J.T. Miller come fight me behind MSG one day, you fucking blockhead.


End file.
